Mining groups and banks are heading lower as investors continue to worry about the outcome of the eurozone crisis, despite attempts at Friday's EU summit to put a cap on the problem.

Much of the attention was focused on David Cameron's decision to opt out of a new treaty, but some analysts fear the bailout agreements could prove too little too late. As if to prove the point, Italian and Spanish bond yields continue to edge higher, prompting the usual range of rumours that the European Central Bank may be stepping in to support them.

And as investors await Standard & Poor's verdict on the summit outcome - it warned eurozone countries' ratings could be at risk - the FTSE 100 has lose 32.04 points to 5497.17, while France and Germany are down around 1%.

Elsewhere Inmarsat has lost 21.9p to 401.5p ahead of its relegation from the FTSE 100.

Pearson was steady at £11.44 after selling its half share data provider FTSE International to its partner, the London Stock Exchange, for £450m.LSE shares have lost 27.5p to 792.5p, not helped by Friday's late news that Standard & Poor's had put the exchanges' credit rating on negative watch, given its exposure to the troubled Italian economy. But analysts also feel it is paying rather a high price:

The valuation of £900m means the LSE is paying a huge 96 times historic net income of £9.4m. Assuming the deal goes through we would expect a huge gain to be recorded through the profit and loss for the valuation adjustment on the current LSE stake in FTSE. This is however pure accounting trickery.

Given the price being paid the LSE needs to convince us value is being created for shareholders.

Among the midcaps Mothercare has climbed 10.6p to 171.2p on weekend reports buyout firm Cinven was considering a £150m approach. Sanjay Vidyarthi at Espirito Santo kept a sell rating on the retailer, saying:

Press commentary suggests that [any Cinven approach] is at a very early stage, relying only on publicly available information. We see this as inevitable, given the share price decline, the vulnerability of the company in the absence of a chief executive and the attractions of the brand and the international franchise business.

However, any initial intentions to close down the UK business and focus just on international are likely to be tempered on closer scrutiny. We maintain our view that landlords are unlikely to give Mothercare an easy time in terms of exiting leases early and therefore the cost of exiting the UK is likely to be prohibitive. A CVA would be an option for a distressed retailer, but Mothercare's balance sheet is okay.

The alternative would be to try to fix the UK, which we think is possible, but will take time and possibly a couple of years of deep losses.

While shareholders may not offer too much resistance to an approach, we don't think that private equity will offer a material premium to the current share price, given the costs involved in fixing the business.